Pullquoted from articles in MacWorld:
"We applaud President Biden for upholding the ITC's ruling and holding Apple accountable for infringing the patents that underpin our industry-leading ECG technology," said Priya Abani, CEO of AliveCor.
In effect, President Biden overruled the US Patent and Trademark decision that Alive's patents were not valid.
In the December ruling, the ITC recommended a limited exclusion order and a cease-and-desist order for Apple Watch models with ECG features. Were it to be enforced, Apple would no longer be able to import new Apple Watch models that support the ECG app. Apple plans to appeal the ITC's decision in a federal courthouse.
While the ITC decision could end up in an Apple Watch ban, the US Patent and Trademark Office in December also invalidated some of AliveCor's patents, which the medical tech company says it will appeal. At the time, Apple said the ITC's decision confirms that the patents AliveCor asserted in the ITC against Apple cannot be infringed.
AliveCor and Apple are embroiled in several legal battles, as AliveCor has also filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple and Apple has sued AliveCor for patent infringement. Apple is also battling a patent infringement case brought by medical technology company Masimo, which asserts Apple Watch models that use light sensors to measure blood oxygen levels infringe its pulse oximeter patents.
AliveCor's KardiaBand was actually rated superior to AW4's EKG by 4% but AliveCor didn't market the product and instead switched to the KardiaMobile device.
As I recall from my days in chemical research the patent requirements render a patent invalid if the inventor does not make the patent commercially available within a year. The problem was before that ruling, inventors would dream up all sorts of ideas, file a patent and then wait for someone to come along to sue for infringement. US Patent law did away with frivolous Patents. The Kardiaband was considered a superior product by the FDA but that does not validate a patent. AW4's ECG feature came out after after AliveCor expired the deadline to commercialize the Kardiaband. I don't know if the deadline to market the patent was the reason the US Patent office invalidated their patent or whether the ITC has a similar ruling on the timing but it seems there is the reason.
Why President Biden is overruling our own US Patent and Trademark law seems odd. It is interesting that the claim is to ban import of all Apple Watches to the US. Or maybe I misinterpreted Biden's position that if the courts rule the import ban is to proceed in the Appeals case then Biden won't interfere as in won't enforce US Patent law.
Let them fight it out in the courts. Personally, I would prefer Apple to win because they have a product on the market and that's the letter of the law.
Personally, I use the EKG feature and the oximeter which has been personally validated at my cardiologist when compared to the 6 lead EKG and a finger pulse oximeter.